Global Courant
Indian officials said on Sunday that a signal error caused a train derailment that killed at least 275 people and injured hundreds more.
In what has turned out to be one of the deadliest railway disasters in decades, two passenger trains derailed Friday night in the Balasore district of Odisha state.
Rescue workers are at work at the scene of derailed passenger trains in the Balasore district, in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, Friday, June 2, 2023. (Push confidence from India via AP)
Jaya Verma Sinha, a senior railway official, said preliminary investigations have shown that a signal has been given to the Coromandel Express high-speed train to run on the main track. The signal later changed and the train instead entered an adjacent loop line where it crashed into a freight loaded with iron ore.
The collision sent the Coromandel Express’s carriages onto another track, causing the incoming Yesvantpur-Howrah Express from the other side to also derail, Verma said. In total, the passenger trains carried nearly 2,300 people.
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Verma said the main cause of the crash was related to a fault in the electronic signaling system, a safety mechanism designed to prevent conflicting movements between trains. It also checks the status of signals that tell drivers how close they are to the next train, how fast they can go and if there are any stopped trains on the track.
It is unclear at this time whether the error was human or technical.
Authorities worked through the weekend to clear the mutilated wreckage of Friday night’s disaster. On Sunday, a few shattered carriages were all that remains of the tragedy.
People try to escape from derailed train carriages after a collision in Balasore, India, on June 2. (ANI/Reuters TV)
Meanwhile, many desperate relatives struggled to identify the bodies of their loved ones. Few others searched hospitals to check whether their relatives were still alive.
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Fifteen bodies were recovered on Saturday night and efforts continued overnight using heavy cranes to remove an engine that had fallen on top of a train car. No bodies were found in the engine and work was completed Sunday morning, officials said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Bradford Betz is a Fox News Digital breaking reporter covering crime, political issues and much more.
